Sunday, 22 July 2012

Hollywood Ending

It
is over. On the other hand, the Tour 2013 has just begun. Its like
that.

The final sprint played out exactly as
I thought it would, to the finest detail. Mind you, I expect several
thousand people also thought exactly as I did. It was EBH for the
last leadout. He really is good EBH, although it is shame he was
born at the same time as Sagan. Same thing happened to people born
at the same time as Merckx or others. One deals with it. Maybe
Sagan will win a few Classics before he decides to lose weight. Be
interesting to see him take on Boonen and Cancellara while he learns
about the Classics. I think EBH is the highest quality rider to lead
out someone for the victory in the Champs for some time. And just
before that, to help Cav out, straight up the Rue de Rivoli (a more
or less flat surface), who can actually ride faster than Bradley
Wiggins? Answer, maybe Cancellara, but today Bradley had the Yellow
Jersey on. It was rather cool. A bit of panache to end it. If the
French can get it.

But Cav took it. He seemed to go from
a bit too far out for my taste, but still. First guy to win four in
a row on the Champs. First guy to win it with the rainbow jersey.
To be honest, it has so much a touch of Hollywood that I am glad I
watched it live. It was live, right? I bet Cav is a happy guy.
Bradley is a happy guy, which makes Froome a little happier, and with
Millar (and Stannard) they seem ready for the Olympics. That is only
six days from now. Bradley said he is going home immediately, and
then doing the last preparations. He does the time trial too. It
would be a bit much if Cav won the road race and Bradley won the time
trial. Actually it would be TOO much in some sense that I am only
beginning to think about. Although very solidly English/British
people will almost certainly not like to admit that Sky riders are
winning too much. A great British accomplishment, or at least a
Welsh accomplishment, as that is what Brailsford is. You get loads
of money from the Lottery, set up a programme to win loads of medals.
Done. Then you try to win the Tour “with a British rider”.
Although along the way this year, the only Englishman on the Sky team
won Paris-Nice, Tour of Romandie and Criterium Dauphiné.
You see my point. Should anyone or any team be that good? Even
USPostal just did Tour/Lance, and then pretty much vanished. In
addition, Cav keeps winning, when he is allowed by the Sky people.
In fact the same people run the Sky Team and the GB Team. That
confusion of roles, personnel, organisational structure and money
always seemed a bit confusing. For example, who is going to do what
EBH does on Sky? If it is a big sprint, most sprinters have a lead
out guy. I ramble, but the point is that Cav is having a totally
excellent year, no matter how you look at it. He wanted to make the
Rainbow Jersey proud, he said that many times. He has. He even won,
most of you won't know this, just before the Tour, some small Belgian
flat stage race, which I had never heard of. He might have won one
stage, maybe not. But he won the entire stage race. He has never
won a stage race before. As I said, it was dead flat.

Lame
French interviews on the sports programme after. Asked Brad if he
had done this for his father. Really stupid and tactless question,
if they had been prepared properly. Maybe it was one of those “tough
questions” you thrust at a sports personalty in the studio about
some difficult part of their life. But Bradley was just off his
bike, just off the podium, totally spaced having won the Tour de
France, and they ask him about his father. Any bike journalist knows
that his father, an Australian cyclist, buggered off very early on,
and Bradley does not have anything to do with him. He was raised by
his mum. Bradley brushed off the question by sitting upright, making
brushing motions with his arm and not even responding much.
Someone's idea of how to try to bring guy down at a moment of
fulfilment. That Stade 2 guy went way low in my estimation. Anyway
shortly after that, the same guy tried to emphasize how much Bradley
must feel good to be the first British rider to win, and how proud of
him the country would be. Bradley did a double take and said,
pointing to himself, I won the Tour de France. My country didn't win
it, I did. Interesting. Terribly tasteless stupid interview. I
think it might take a bit longer for the true intercultural
understanding to happen. They have done it with Cav, but Bradley is
trickier.

I
keep realising what a management task it must be to keep the group
sweet, the world champ, the yellow jersey, and the only guy who might
beat the yellow jersey, plus two or three who could be leaders on
another team (EBH, Porte, at least). Then there are the Sky guys
left home, including some young ones who did rather well in the Giro.
Brailsford seems quite clear, if someone wants to leave, they leave,
get a buyer for their contract and they leave. I actually think he
knows that a team of relatively happy people are more likely to win.
Everyone has a chance. I was a little bit surprised that Froome
behaved so badly. But he has not been at this high level for long,
as Bradley suggested at one point. One reason I don't think there is
a problem is that if Froome wants to leave, no one much will care.
It is up to Froome to make sure he does what he is told. I mean the
guy is team leader for the Vuelta. Mostly likely there will be some
very classy younger riders to give him support. Not only to give him
support, but to take his job if he leaves. They finished seventh and
ninth in the Giro, and are called Henao and Uran. The Sky team is
really very well constructed. I should think having loads of money
does make it way easier. But you have to have the staff. The
Katusha staff clearly did not do much to get Menchov and his support
team ready. And they have the second biggest budget. BMC, probably
the third richest, did get a consolation prize, but not even close to
the big yellow. Money is not quite all there is.

The
final time gaps were rather huge for recent Tours. I am afraid I am
not going to look up how long is has been since such and such a gap
existed between the first guy and the tenth or the second or
whatever. But big gaps, really quite big. And NOT a mountainous
Tour. Interesting.

Just
so I say it in one sentence, in spite of the fact that their sponsor
is a super-rich liar, and cheat, and truth distorter, that Sky team
said they would do something and they just went and did it. Bravo.

Not
a lot I need to say really. I could tell you how I did on the
Fantasy teams. Me and my Lancaster friend lost interest and never
even used up all our rider change options during the Tour. I am not
going to do that kind of league, it just silly. You got what you
got. There are no substitutes in the the Tour. Don't know if I beat
her or not. We were pretty much even. On the cobblestone Fantasy
League (all year round), I have been trying to beat this guy from one
of my forums. I seldom if ever manage it. I am always second,
sometimes third in our forum sub-league. Looks like I might whip his
ass on the Tour. A minor delight. As far as the season-long,
outside run fantsy league that many of my forum people enter, I am
much as usual.
http://www.nrtoone.com/fantasy/cycling/index.php?page=home
It appears that one of our guys, who also wins the winter quiz
http://www.cyclingrevealed.com/trivia/triviaindex.htm,
might have won the entire
global competition.
I think there are about a thousand in that league. I am about
250th,
and within my forum, I am about sixth or so. My usual. Still good,
but I am not often lucky as well as skilful. Through injury, I lost
Sanchez and Gesink from my team this year. But it turns out Gesink
might not have done a thing this year anyway. To win or do well in a
Fantasy Game, you have to do the right thing and not lose anyone. So
a good team would have Sagan, Cancellara, Wiggins, Tejay, Greipel and
Cav for sprinters, Evans and Froome, with careful use of extra credit
on certain stages, and that is exactly what our guy did. Actually he
had Voeckler and did not have Nibali. So the overall verdict on the
fantasy league is as usual. Not that bad, not that good, with rare
moments of excellence. After picking Cancellara for double points,
and having two or the top four riders and whatever, I was eleventh
for the first day of the Tour. Cancellara … I guess we could hope
that he disrupts the pattern of Sky domination a bit. Bradley has
won enough this year. Unless he wants to go and ride for Chris
Froome in the Vuelta. (laughing out loud icon). My performance was
about like finishing 47th
in GC and 21st in the mountains competition. A cross between Nerz
and Fedrigo. Moments, but not a great performance.

Tejay
is the third Etats Unien to have the young rider's jersey after Greg
and Andy Hampsten.

Apparently
Sagan had more points than anyone since Sean Kelly. Sagan really did
wipe them all out. No contest. Came second on the Champs in case
anyone forgot him in all the Sky glory. The guy is nearly flawless.
Nice shy smile. Modest in his Italian speech. Probably speaks
English too, certainly can understand French. Assuming he does not
get corrupted by the high life, fall in with the wrong crowd, use
drugs, get injured badly, stop training to have holidays with models,
transfer teams who promise him everything …. then he should be one
of the greatest race winners there have been. He does have to lose
weight if he is going to keep up in the mountains. Oops he already
can in the high mountains, until the heat is turned up. I will have
to look up who else besides, Merckx and Bartali had any kind of
record equal to his. He really is just a few months older that
Thibaut Pinot. And Tejay.

Which
reminds me of the young riders. I know I am always excited abut
young riders coming up, holding their own. Because I live in France
and know how much the French really would like a big winner, I find
the new young lads quite exciting. Must check with my cynical
clubmates to see what they think. Pinot is my guy. I have, sadly,
come to dislike Rolland, even though he is a superb young climber,
capable of winning a stage in any Tour he enters. Whoops, he already
has done that. Thing about him is that he really can't time trial,
in fact, Pinot can't yet either. They need to learn fast or they are
only going to be an “occasional stage winner”, like the last
generation of French heroes, Chavanel, Gadret, Pineau, Casar,
Voeckler, Feillu, Casper and others. As a spectator, I am tired of
those guys. They don't do much all year (except Chavanel) and put it
all on theTour. Too French, not global enough. Too far down the top
level. I want someone who can win a stage in the mountains by being
clever and strong. And, in fact, both Pinot and Rolland have done
this. Rolland twice. I have not even mentioned the young French
sprinters who won't ride the Tour until next year or even later. I
am not saying they will beat Cav, Goss, Greipel, Sagan in every race.
They are young. But they have beaten serious opposition. We
shouldn’t forget Tony Gallopin who was doing outstanding riding
including some serious climbs, until his guy went wonky. Tejay and
he are the guys for the future on that BMC team. The guys from the
past, Gilbert, Evans, Hushovd have not really done very well at all
this season. BMC have Taylor Phinney too, not in the Tour this year.
Anyway, all we have to do is wait a bit and see how they do in the
next few years. I think if I am lucky there will be another
generation after them that I will have to get to know. Guys who are
about 14-15 right now. Probably not even riding road bikes yet.

For
some reason my wife (and I) decided to watch a bit of the English
ITV4 coverage. We often turned it over to the French coverage, as
the Brits have a huge number of adverts, really quite disruptive to
view. Anyway we heard Bradley’s speech. The one that started with
the joke about the raffle tickets being drawn now. He grabs a mike
on the Champs Elysée, crowds of I don't know how many tens of
thousands of people, and he cracks a joke about raffle drawing. The
French won't even get why taking a mike for a simple guy from Kilburn
would automatically turn his mind to that. Then he said banal
things, then mentioned specifically his mum who was there and who
would be totally happy, dream come true. Then at the end, he said
drive carefully, don't drink too much tonight. All totally Bradley
and he said it in english. Usually on French TV, in fact, ALWAYS,
he speaks excellent French. Not perfect, but better than 90% of all
English immigrants I have met here. Good street expressions too.
Then we turned over to the French coverage and they were just
translating the speech. Weird that. The French are behind the
actual live event, I guess so they can take care of errors …
Anyway, the translator is very good. I have listened to her voice
for three weeks and am perfectly able to judge her work rendering the
English into French. Although Brailsford, Millar and Bradley always
speak good French. The translator is good. Could you believe it?
They didn’t mention the raffle ticket joke, deleted. They
mentioned something about his father, NOT his mother, and they just
skipped the joke about not drinking too much tonight. His speech was
really short. I got really upset about this. They just didn't
mention don't get
drunk. They claim he mentioned his father, when it was his mother.
This is serious French messiness, the kind that blew up the Rainbow
Warrior. I hope Hollande apologizes for the public TV station.

Later
in Stade 2, the big sports Sunday show, they offered Brad a pint of
some kind of amber liquid. Probably some French stuff. Bradley made
a little automatic gesture, but said no thanks, he had the Olympics
just around the corner. It wasn't a joke. I don't think the guy is
going to get drunk to celebrate, until maybe after the Olympics.

And he'll be riding all year through Lombardie. He does not just target Le Tour.

The France Television commentators, other than Jaja and Jean Paul Ollivier are asses. I think they asked Wiggins about his father because they didn't know any better. They knew he was a 6 day racer and Brad was born in Belgium, but were too lazy or too uninterested to know any more. They were completely surprised by Wiggin's reaction to the question.

I agree that the woman who does the translations is probably the best. Some of the other translators on Francetv or Eurosport just make things up when they loose the thread. I've also heard translators state the exact opposite of what the rider said.

About Me

I have been writing and corresponding about the Tour each July for eighteen years. The Tour is a bit of a passion, but riding a bike is what I do all the year around. My club has a site http://www.cyclo-club-bedarieux.com/guppy/